Myanmar has undergone democratic transition since 2010 when the country introduced elections and a parliamentary form of government. The country has now had two successive governments, the first led by President Thein Sein and the second by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy. Both governments have made the ethnic peace process, based on the 2015 Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement, a key policy issue. Nonetheless, only limited success has been obtained thus far, and important structural and agency factors inhibit greater progress. These factors, termed “democracy deficits” in this article, suggest that the peace process has limited scope for further success in the medium term, and that the interactions between these two factors has only worsened the situation. A postscript brings the article up to date.

This article is a study of the legacy of the Korean War, as well as being a case study on the first instance of regime transition in the Cold War era. This study compares the incorporation of “Reclaimed Areas” (subokjigu) by South Korea with the incorporation of “Newly Liberated Areas” (sinhaebangjigu) by North Korea comprehensively from the aspects of occupation, politics, economics, and national identity. Both South Korea’s transplantation of capitalism in the Reclaimed Areas and the expansion of North Korea’s “people’s democracy” (inminminjujui) took place unilaterally and in a Cold War fashion. Changes to the national identities in each region took place in silence and conformity, paradoxically illustrating the pain and suffering felt while each region was incorporated into an unyielding regime.

The main assumption of this article is that the essence of the sixty-five year-long ‘Korean question’ is to replace the Korean Armistice Agreement with a new security order, often referred to as a Korean Peninsula Peace regime. As such, this article explores elements considerable for a stable order on the Korean Peninsula. First, this article reviews relevant literature on the concept of ‘order’ in the discipline of international relations mainly from Henry Kissinger. Second, this article analyzes the elements of the Armistice Agreement as a ‘living precedent.’ Furthermore, this article offers a preliminarily study of a post-war order cases such as 2+4 Treaty and Austrian State Treaty. In conclusion this article experimentally proposes an outline of elements of a new security order on the Korean Peninsula.

This article addresses the underexplored question of why some state violence cases in Asia are not followed by transitional justice even during a democratic transition. It explicates the two factors that obstruct or delay seeking truth and accountability and thus bring impunity for perpetrators. One is the context in which the violence took place, and the other is longevity of the violent regime. If the violence occurs during a period of conflation of state construction and regime building, and if the perpetrators’ power persists long enough to be institutionalized, transitional justice is least likely to take place. Five cases of violence violence which were committed by anticommunist regimes during the Cold War in four Asian countries are explored.

After 25 years, the global vision for human security as a concept and a policy commitment remains unfulfilled in most parts of the world. In fact, more and more evidence points to the growing reality that the idea of securing people has once again succumbed to the traditional concepts of state security and regime security, as it did after World War II. Part of the problem can be found in some major policy instruments adopted by proponents of human security. Military intervention for human protection, economic sanctions and judicial punishment or threats thereof, which have been regarded as policy instruments to protect people or promote human security, have proved to be either insufficient or ineffective, and at worst counter-productive.

In 2014, the Thai army staged its thirteenth coup claiming to resolve the decade-long political conflict. This article seeks to analyze conflict resolution efforts by Thailand’s incumbent military regime and the way in which these efforts actually affect the trajectory of the conflict. Drawing on the Thai case, I argue that the junta’s conflict resolution efforts aggravate the conditions conducive to conflict entrapment because: (1) military rule closes down a channel for meaningful dialogue among conflict parties; (2) the army’s association with Thailand’s traditional elites implies the continuation of socio-economic inequality underpinning the current crisis; (3) military rule undermines Thailand’s development of democratic institutions needed to overcome the ongoing power struggle; and (4) the junta’s political partisanship is likely to exacerbate social division in Thailand.